Fort Bragg, North Carolina (revisited)

First timer?  In this formerly once-a-day blog (and now pretty much a once-every-three-or-four days blog), I have my computer select a random latitude and longitude that puts me somewhere in the continental United States (the lower 48).  I call this “landing.”  I keep track of the watersheds I land in, as well as the town I land near.  I do some internet research to hopefully find something of interest about my landing location.  To find out more about A Landing A Day (like who “Dan” is and what the various numbers and abbreviations mean in the first paragraph), please see “About Landing,” (and “Abbreviations” and “Cryptic Numbers”) above.

 Landing number 2168; A Landing A Day blog post number 596.

Dan –  Good news:  I landed in a USer.  GREAT NEWS:  I LANDED IN AN EASTERN STATE!!!  That’s right, after 55 straight landings in the Midwest or west; after racking up incredible 55,000 to one odds that I could go so long without landing in the East.  It finally happened . . . NC; 36/38; 4/10; 34; 150.0.

One more hurdle.  See the “34” above?  That’s 34 straight landings where I haven’t hit 5/10 (number of USers for the last 10 landings).  Since I have about a 50/50 shot for USers and OSers, one would think that I wouldn’t go 34 straight landings without hitting 5/10 even once, wouldn’t one?  FYI, a USer next landing gets me to 5/10.

Here’s my regional landing map:

 

My local map shows my proximity to Fort Bragg, but doesn’t tell the whole story (obviously, the whole story comes later):

 

My last landing, I landed in the watershed of the Big Muddy Creek.  I’m toning things down for this landing, as I landed in the watershed of plain ol’ Muddy Creek; on to the Little River (first hit ever!); to the Cape Fear River (11^th hit):

 

And of course, on to the AO (362^nd hit):

 

Here’s my Google Earth (GE) trip in from outer space:

 

 

Staying with GE (and just for the record), here’s the full U.S. shot, with my yellow line between eastern landings and the rest of the country:

 

Today’s landing is the eastern-most NC landing.  It still looks a little lonely along the east coast, eh?

If your short-term memory is still intact, you may recall that I said something about the fact that my local landing map “doesn’t tell the whole story.”  And here’s the rest of the story, starting with a map of the “Fort Bragg Reservation:”

 

See that arm of property that heads up towards Spout Springs?  I immediately suspected that I had landed on Reservation property:

 

By the way, don’t take my yellow line terribly seriously (as if Fort Bragg brass will download this map); I pretty much winged it, but still have no doubt that I landed on Government property.

So, Fort Bragg it is, although this is my third Fort Bragg post.  OK, OK, so the first one was Fort Bragg, California, but the second was Fort Bragg NC.  And just like this time, I actually landed on government property.  Because I’m lazy, I’m going to copy & paste part of my old post:

So, since I landed in Fort Bragg, Fort Bragg it is.  [Ouch, I said almost the exact same thing this time.]  From Wiki:

 Fort Bragg is a major United States Army installation just outside of Fayetteville. The fort is named for Confederate General Braxton Bragg. It covers over 251 square miles in four counties. It is home to multiple divisions of the US military including US Army Airborne and Special Operations. 

Do you remember that I landed near Fort Bragg CA back on December 30, 2009?  In that post, I featured Braxton Bragg who managed to get two Forts named after him despite a somewhat checkered military career. 

Anyway, here’s a GE shot of the heart of this Fort Bragg:

Here’s a shot of some of the housing on the base:

And this, of the Airborne troops doing their thing (at the Fort):

Pope AFB is nestled right up with Fort Bragg and supports the Army Airborne mission.  It was named after one Harley Pope, a WWI pilot who was killed when he crashed into the nearby Cape Fear River.  This memorial to Harley is at the base:

I spent at least 20 minutes on the net trying to find out the story behind the memorial.  Mainly, I was curious to know if the broken propeller was actually from Harley’s plane, or if it is a replica, or if it is more generically a symbol of a downed plane.  Anybody out there know?

 Back to today’s post:  This time around, I figured that I’d add a couple of You Tube videos that show what goes on at the base.  First this one of the 82nd Airborne doing their thing:

 

And here’s some action at the Ft. Bragg obstacle course:

  

I’ll close with the same picture I did last time around:  a shot of a Coca Cola truck that services the base.  These guys know their market . .

  

That’ll do it.

 KS

 Greg

 

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